I give up

[kornelix]

Natty Unity: I logged in as root (after using $ passwd root) to see if my font problems were related to my user account. The answer was no, but when I tried to return to my normal account, the entire desktop had disappeared (launchers, top panel). I restarted with "classic" and found that all app windows had no menus and could not be moved on the desktop.

So I give up. I will try 11.04 again in a month or so.

[mörgæs]

That is also what I would recommend. Don't install any Ubuntu at the release date, but a couple of months later.

Regarding root:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo